Wednesday 14 October 2009

Why there's no often no point in banning things

From the BBC:

Restricting the availability of legal abortion does not appear to reduce the number of women trying to end unwanted pregnancies, a major report suggests.

The Guttmacher Institute's survey found abortion occurs at roughly equal rates in regions where it is legal and regions where it is highly restricted. It did note that improved access to contraception had cut the overall abortion rate over the last decade...


Admittedly, that Institute is a "pro-choice reproductive think tank" so they would say that, wouldn't they? I suppose the Catholics will put out a report next week saying exactly the opposite and we'll be none the wiser.

2 comments:

M said...

This is the problem with all interventionism to stop things, people always eventually find away to do things if they want to do them strongly enough. So bansturbation only really works if its banning stuff that has little impact.

Tim Almond said...

It's possibly true. Despite the fact that these are generally poorer countries where women generally are housewives (so don't want to delay family for career), the lack of contraception leads to a lot higher pregnancy rate.

In Ireland's case (yes, you moron Lisbon voters, I'm talking to you), women just get on a Ryanair flight to Britain for £20.